when nasa ends its full dedication to the iss they said they would leave it to their international partners, is there any chance that china will be able to get ships to it in a few years to keep it manned if russia pull out?

I could see that happening but I tend to lean towards the fact that for right now China will probably do their own thing. It just depends on how well their manned flights go. If successful, don't look for them to do anything that won't benifit them. If they have disaster after disaster, then you can look to them for help with internationial partners, probably in exchange for figuring out how to repeat successful manned missions. I don't know, just a thought.

When NASA ends its assembly of the ISS the other international partners will pick up the supplying and house keeping of the ISS. NASA will keep a presents at the ISS to support the Moon-Mars mission research.

For China it has the Human Rights issue that kept them out of the initial ISS partnership. But this may change and they may become a miner partner at ISS but not a major partner. The Chinese spacecraft doses have the docking hatch needed to dock at the ISS so being able to go to the space station is not a problem.

Hopefully buy the time the shuttles are retired there will be several spacecraft from several groups and nations that will be able to reach the ISS so relying on the Russians to be the only support to the ISS will not be a problem “I hope”.

I think that when the Shuttle flies again it will be on a limited basis and we will be cost sharing with the Russians, using their rockets to ferry people and equipment to the station and back (their program is much more cost effective than the Shuttle) NASA is really pushing the RLV program and will begin backing out of the Space Station as quickly as is politicaly possible. There are many new players to take our place China being just one.

Wouldn't it be nice if they resurected the X-33????

And then...Of all the insults! The Russians are Talkin Smack about the US space program.

Construction of the X-33 was more than 85 percent complete, with the liquid oxygen tank, avionics bay, flight umbilicals, reaction control system thruster controller and landing gear installed. However, the X-33 was cancelled in 2001.

Stability of the sleek looking wedge-shaped craft at various speed ranges, as well as its overall weight, has plagued designers..."linear aerospike" engines that would have powered the rocket plane also proved troublesome to build...liquid-hydrogen tank ran into difficulty while undergoing tests

Of course the problems will not be solved now that there isn't a project that requires a solution

Its been up there almost as long as previous stations but its not even finished yet?!?!

Once NASA has returned to big boosters three flights would but up a station dwarfing the current station. (3 x 140Tons = 420 Tons versus current ISS with 200Tons) A more monolithic station would be easier to boost around and could be free of a lot of the design compromises of the ISS.

Then again it would still be NASA built. Design by commitee can really really hurt, witness will you the X33.

Why have the space shuttle? So we can build the ISS. Why have the ISS... so the Space shuttle has something to do.

Really, retaining the ISS but this imaginary requirement onto the new Nasa space launch vehicle to be able to lift new 60T elements.